When cooks dole out herbs and spices, meat usually gets most of the love, which is totally unfair: Produce benefits just as much from a sprinkle of spice. Here are a few top-notch pairings, with some recipes to try.

If there was ever a vegetable that needed a makeover, it's cauliflower, which can be bland when cooked poorly. Trust me, blandness won't be a problem in this recipe. Cumin, an intensely aromatic spice, perks it up, while roasting brings out cauliflower's sweeter side.

Curry takes a humble root vegetable and transports it halfway around the world, to India. In this ingenious sweet potato fry recipe from the blog Joy the Baker, a surprise ingredient functions as a binder and makes for extra-crispy baked fries.

Pairing rosemary and potatoes is like playing Twist and Shout at a wedding: it's fun, but not exactly surprising. Enter butternut squash, whose sweet flavor goes beautifully with rosemary, and, compared to potatoes, it has an extra boost of vitamin C.